Plague of Strength

I am often asked why I don’t write about so-and-so bodybuilder / strongman / powerlifter, and why I seem to ignore anyone who competed after 2000.  The reason for this is simple- lifters in the modern era are so fucking boring that I have to pop ephedrine and slam a Bang just to get through six paragraphs of their endlessly dull, Soviet-factory-worker-esque, grey and beige, do-nothing-but-lift-and-eat, uninteresting lives.  They have all of the personality of a dead carp, all of the intrigue of a Real Housewives episode, the depth of a puddle in the Kalahari, and generally make me wish I could hop in a DeLorean with Marty McFly and fuck off back to 1954, when the chicks looked like Bettie Page and the bros in Muscle Beach were so fucking cool that James Dean looked like a fucking Channer by comparison.

The lifters of yesteryear, however, were a far different breed- they mixed the fuck out of business and pleasure, competed in a variety of sports, and were generally people you’d want to hang around with, rather than dickheads who would simply slump half dead from drugs in front of you mumbling about training while they morosely masticate whatever bland fare they happened to bring with them in their dumbass wheelie bag cooler fuckery.  Fun is dead in the lifting world, killed by people taking a pastime far too fucking seriously for no reason than they lack the personality to do something interesting with it.

That said, it stands to reason we should investigate the life, training style, and diet of one the most ripped and compelling men in 1950s and 60s Muscle Beach, Irwin “Zabo” Koszewski.  Of all of the guys of whom you’ve likely never heard, Zabo Koszewski should rate pretty highly on your “Holy Shit”-ometer due to his freakish leanness in a time when most guys were softer than a pile of baby shit left out in a light rain on a June day in Bangkok, and respect is due for the fact that he trained and hung out with the aforementioned Steve Merjanian and (likely) Chuck Ahrens, in spite of the fact that he was half as big and ten times as lean as those two.  A fixture of Muscle Beach from 1951 to the end of his life, Koszewski pulled down more “Best Abdominal” awards than anyone in history, likely owing to the fact that he dieted and trained more fanatically than a channer at a gun range before shooting up the local high school (Hise).

Zabo Koszewski Vital Statistics
Born: August 20, 1924
Died: March 29, 2009 (Aged 84)
Height: 5’10”
Weight: 170 – 185lbs

Though Zabo was best known for his insane cuts and his amazing year-round condition, the dude trained so often and so hard that he could still put on a show in the gym, barefoot and in street clothes.  For no other reason than because he could, Zabo was seen more than once snatching and clean and strict pressing 220 lbs, followed by a full clean and split jerk with 270lbs in slacks, a button down shirt, and barefoot, with no warmup. Though that’s not Earth shattering, I highly doubt you can name a non-Olympic weightlifter who weighs 170 – 185lbs and can duplicate that feat… and I would venture to guess that Zabo was spitting game to any chicks within earshot the entire time he was putting on that show.

Zabo was nothing if not a showman- the man’s life reads like a bucket list for the Dos Equis man.  Former training partner of Arnold and publisher of Iron Man magazine, John Balik, said that even in an era as cartoonishly outlandish as 1960’s Muscle Beach, Koszewski “was the embodiment of the spirit of Muscle Beach” (Hise).  Zabo grew in New Jersey, a three sport athlete in high school, although his first love was weightlifting.  After high school, Zabo enlisted in the Army and made three combat landings in WW2, likely running around like Stallone in Rambo II and surviving solely on the basis of his superhumanly shredded physique.

“Irwin had been in Guadalcanal when the Japanese overran the place, and he stayed under the water sucking air through a piece of bamboo for several days while the enemy was poking around the water with bayonets.  Irwin managed to dodge the bayonets and get home safely” (Yarnell 205).

After running out of bad guys to slaughter, Zabo became the valet of the original Nature Boy, Buddy Rogers, wrestling under the name Jungle Boy.  At the same time, Zabo began entering just about every bodybuilding competition in the continental US, destroying the opposition in small shows but losing the bigger ones to that era’s mass monsters (the guys who won “Most Muscular” almost never won the overall, and Zabo always walked away with that trophy).

In the early 1950’s Zabo had his fill of greasy Italians and hoagies and headed West, to the mecca of bodybuilding in Santa Monica.  It was there that Zabo blossomed into the Venus-flytrap womankiller with whom at least some of you are familiar.   He trained in the same ultra-hardcore basement gym where Steve Merjanian, Chuck Ahrens, and other lifting luminaries of the era trained, and signed on with the ultra-hot cougar Mae West to work in her male review “Something for the Girls.”  He, Joe Gold, Mr. America and Mr. Universe George Eiferman, Mr. America Armand Tanny, Mr. Universe Mickey Hargitay, and three other Muscle Beach bodybuilders served as male dancers for the revue, accompanied by a male singer and Hattie McDaniel (Mammy in Gone With The Wind) in what was essentially the hottest Vegas act going in the 1950’s.  As such, Zabo was raking in the loot and made connections that would eventually lead to a brief acting career and to him becoming the fucking Marlboro Man in print ads.

As if the man had not made enough connections by touring with the hottest 60 year old slut on the planet, he got even more hooked into the Hollywood scene when Joe Gold asked him to manage the first strictly bodybuilding gym and a “palace” by comparison to other gyms of the era, Gold’s Gym, in 1965 (Roach, Vol. 1).  At that point, Zabo was partying his ass off, drinking like a fucking fish and smoking, in Tommy Chong’s words “a ton of weed” (Chong).  When Tommy Chong says he gets after it partying, you know that you are a pink bitch pussy compared to Zabo Koszewski, no matter how much you’ve partied.

With pussy literally falling out of his pockets, Zabo trained fanatically and managed Gold’s (and later World’s Gym) by day and partied like a fucking animal at night.  Though the IPF would likely have slapped him with a lifetime ban just for shaking Tommy Chong’s hand, Koszewski was still natty as fuck, and maintained that status throughout his life.  Though he talked tough to new members, Zabo was apparently pretty chill at Gold’s while nursing what must’ve been catastrophic hangovers, and he hooked members like Tommy Chong up with basic programs (Chong still uses it to this day) and ran them through the use of equipment to ensure that they didn’t kill themselves in the pursuit of maximum jackedness.  It was actually through Zabo’s chill demeanor and Animal House-esque party habits that formed a bond between himself and Tommy Chong that landed him a couple of movie roles and eventually had Chong working the desk at World Gym after he was released from prison.

To say say Zabo was a frequent bodybuilding competitor is like saying “Jeff Bezos frequently makes a million dollars.”  From age 23 to 46, Zabo competed in at least 31 bodybuilding competitions, winning “Best Abs” in every competition that awarded the trophy, and “Most Muscular” in most of the rest.  Tragically, winning either of those trophies was like winning an MTV Movie award- it virtually guaranteed that people would take you about as seriously as they take Justin Bieber when it was time to hand out a legitimate award.  With his condition at least two decades before its time, Zabo almost always found himself edged out by fuller, less defined competitors.  Undeterred by small details like not winning, Zabo forged ahead and collected his “Best Abs” trophies like millennials collect STDs.

Zabo Koszewski Competition History

1947 AAU Mr. New Jersey 4th
1948 AAU Mr. New Jersey 1st
1950 AAU Jr. Mr. Middle Atlantic 1st
1950 AAU Mr. Middle Atlantic 1st
1950 AAU Mr. America 13th
1950 IFBB Mr. Eastern America 3rd
1951 AAU Mr. Strength and Health 2nd
1951 AAU Jr. Mr. America 4th
1951 AAU Mr. Eastern America 3rd
1952 AAU Mr. Superman 4th
1952 AAU Mr. Southern California 3rd (tie)
1952 AAU Mr. California 4th
1952 AAU Jr. Mr. America 3rd
1952 AAU Mr. America 4th
1953 AAU Mr. Southern California 2nd
1953 AAU Mr. Los Angeles 1st
1953 AAU Mr. California 2nd
1953 AAU Mr. Pacific Coast 1st
1953 AAU Mr. America 3rd
1954 AAU Mr. California 1st
1954 AAU Jr. Mr. America 2nd
1954 AAU Mr. America 3rd
1956 Pro Mr. USA 3rd
1957 Mr. USA 5th (tie)
1965 IFBB Mr. America 3rd (medium)
1967 Mr. International 1st (medium, 2nd overall)
1967 Pro Mr. California 2nd
1967 IFBB Jr. Mr. America 3rd
1967 Mr. International 1st (medium, 2nd overall)
1967 IFBB Mr. America 2nd (medium)1970 IFBB Pro Mr. World 4th (short)

In spite of his propensity for getting fucked up and banging sluts, Zabo almost never missed workouts.  Although I can hardly imagine training hungover for three hours a day in an LA gym with no air conditioning, Zabo took that shit on the chin like the stone-jawed Pride fighter Kazuyuki Fujita ate knees to the face.  I guess having survived three combat landings in WW2 would change anyone’s perspective about anything as minor as a life-destroying hangover, and he just went into the gym and rocked the fuck out.  His insanely high-volume workouts, dense enough to give the internet’s natty bros cancer of the AIDS, looked like this:

Zabo Koszewski Training Routine
Every Day
Incline Situps- 1 x 500 (yup, one set of 500 reps)
Hanging Leg Raise- 1 x 500

Monday / Wednesday / Friday
Legs and Back
Squats supersetted with Leg Curls – 8 x 10
Hack Squats supersetted with Leg Curls – 2 x 20
Stiff Leg Dead Lift – 4 x 10
Power Cleans – 4 x 10

Chest
(All exercises done as a giant set, which he repeated 7 times)
Decline Dumbell Press –  x 10
Cable Crossover – x 10
Dips – x 10
Push Ups – x 25

Back
Chins – 7 x 10
Cable Rows – 7 x 10
Behind the Neck Pull Downs – 7 x 10
One Arm Reverse Cable Laterals – 7 x 10

Tuesday / Thursday
Shoulders
Alternating Seated Dumbell Presses – 7 x 10
Dumbbell Laterals – 7 x 10
Seated Behind the Neck Press – 7 x 10
Upright Rows – 7 x 10

Arms
Incline Curls supersetted with Tricep Pushdowns – 20 x 10

Sunday
Fuck Around Day
Generally, he’d head to the beach and swim, or play a sport.

For anyone familiar with Vince Gironda’s programming and diet, Zabo seems to have followed both with the kind of obsessive devotion generally reserved for stalkers and 24/7 TPE slaves.  Zabo ate only two meals a day, both of which consisted of fruits, vegetables, lean meat (especially hamburger), eggs, apple juice, coffee, and milk, and he trained six days a week with what amounted to German Volume training, just as Gironda recommended.  Though he would cut all dairy just before a show to achieve paper-thin skin leanness, Zabo was also a huge fan of Rheo H. Blair’s protein powder, which Gironda advocated with the kind of vociferousness most chatty people in clubs reserve for cocaine.

Blair’s protein was crazy advanced for its time, as the only other protein on the market was horrific-tasting soy dogshit, and consisted of casein, egg white protein, and dried whole eggs.  It came only in vanilla, was sweetened with cyclamate to keep the carbs down (though apparently it was nearly as carcinogenic as plutonium), and contained 102 calories, 17.5 grams of protein, 7 grams or carbohydrate and 0.6 grams of fat per scoop (Heffernan).  Blair recommended (as did Gironda), that people take two scoops of protein with eight ounces of cream and eight ounces of milk, which then yielded a whopping 949 calories, 55g protein, 35g carbs, and 62g fat per shake, and that lifters drink three of those shakes a day (so Zabo was getting ~3000 calories a day before he even cut into his first steak of the day).  As with every other lifter from this era, Zabo got the fuck after it calorie-wise, even though he was natty as fuck.  Therefore, if you are one of those natty bros who constantly claims you can’t eat that much or you’ll get fat, consider this- you’re doing it wrong.  And by “it” I mean “literally everything.”

Speaking of doing it wrong, it seems like the lot of us are doing it wrong when it comes to abs.  As I mentioned, Zabo never lost a “Best Abs” award.  Interestingly, his ab routine was developed out of necessity- when doctors told him only surgery would repair a hernia, he said fuck that and just started training abs like his life depended on it.  Perhaps his life didn’t but his guts seemed to depend on it if he didn’t want his insides outside his body.

“I knew that it would be wise for me to “make haste slowly” so my first ab routine consisted of just two exercises: Situps and Leg Raises. Although I could only manage a few reps that first training day, I soon had worked up to the point where 500 Situps and 500 Leg Raises were just warmups for my more advanced training routines every day.”

“To bring out clear-cut abdominals you must do two things:

1.) Burn away all midsection fat that is on the outside, and that which lurks between the muscles . . . the fat you can’t see, but causes you too look too smooth and too large in the abdominal region.

2.) You must continually work for muscularity of the abdominals, and that requires daily diligence. Yes, you don’t exercise your abs with a split routine . . . but with an everyday workout with specialized abdominal exercises” (Koszewski).

I won’t go into the details of all that Zabo recommended for abs (it’s linked in the sources if you’re curious), because it’s easily summed up with “all of the things.”  Basically, he recommended every permutation of situps, levers, and leg raises ever invented, and had this to say about sets and reps:

“Work up to 10 sets of Situps and work up to at least a total of 500 reps. Work up to 10 sets of Leg Raises and work as many reps per set as your pull against gravity will allow. But don’t throw, thrust, or maneuver the body by ‘assisting’ with other muscles. Make the upper abs do the work in Situps; make the lower abs do the work in Leg Raises.”

“After each workout practice mirror posing for 15 minutes, contracting first the rectus – then the intercostals, trying to squeeze extra definition from each posing session. This will add interest to your abdominal workouts, and give you valuable posing experience and control” (Koszewski).

Simple enough- bust your fucking ass harder than a drunken retard in a Jackass film and be lean as shit.  Though it’s in vogue to seek out some panacea involving a highly complicated system to achieve a simple goal, Zabo is here to show you all of the nonsense of which you might be thinking to rebut this statement is just that- nonsense.  The man was Occam’s Razor personified- simple and brutal is far more effective than overly complex.  If it takes longer to explain than it does to do, you’re likely fucking up your lifting in every imaginable way.

In case you’re curious as to how far in life a sick set of abs and a love of partying can get you, it seems it can take you pretty fucking far.  A far cry from the cycle-your-coffee-intake-and-don’t-fuck-sluts-or-stay-out-late-or-smoke-weed-or-get-hammered attitudes that are seemingly so prevalent in today’s ABSOLUTELY NO FUCKING FUN ZONE lifting zeitgeist, Zabo made that shit work, and he lived a life worth talking about.  Here’s a list of the ways my vote for the Most Interesting Man In The World is immortalized in celluloid:

Zabo Flexin’ Abs On The Big Screen

• was Tommy Chong’s stunt double in Things Are Tough All Over (1982)
• played Body Builder #1 alongside [Body by] Jake Steinfeld in the Cheech and Chong flick Nice Dreams (1981)
• played a gorilla in Planet of the Apes (1968)
• played a football player alongside Shirley MacLaine in John Goldfarb, Please Come Home! (1965)
• played a soldier alongside Kirk Douglas and Laurence Olivier in Spartacus (1960)
• played a contestant in Debbie Reynold’s Athena (1954)
• was himself, as runner up Mr. America, in Groucho Marx’s You Bet Your Life (1959)
• worked on the TV shows Combat! and Star Trek

Hise, Bob. The Fabulous Zabo Koszewski. Strength and Health. Aug 1967. Web.
9 Feb 2013. http://www.musclememory.com/showArticle.php?sh670820

Juliano, Dominick.  The Essence of Being.  Bloomington: Balboa Press, 2015.

Kelemen, Matt.  Q and A: Tommy Chong. Las Vegas Magazine.  17 Jun 2016.  Web.  27 May 2018.  https://lasvegasmagazine.com/interviews/qa/2016/jun/17/qa-tommy-chong-treasure-island-las-vegas-strip/#/0

Koszewski, Zabo.  Developing your abdominals.  The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban.  8 Jan 2018.  Web.  27 May 2018.  http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2018/01/developing-your-abdominals-zabo.html

Roach, Randy.  Muscle, Smoke, and Mirrors, Volume 1.  Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2008.

Roach, Randy.  Muscle, Smoke, and Mirrors, Volume 2.  Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2011.

Thurber, John. Irvin ‘Zabo’ Koszewski dies at 84; bodybuilder renowned for his
abs. LA Times. 2 May 2009. Web. 9 Feb 2013.
http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-zabo-koszewski2-2009may02-story.html

Yarnell, Dave.  Forgotten Secrets of the Culver City Westside Barbell Club Revealed.  Lexington: Self Published, 2014.